spring has tasted of the infusion.  Pity was commanded by Jupiter to follow the steps of her mother through the world, dropping balm into the wounds she made, and binding up the hearts she had broken.  She follows with her hair loose, her bosom bare and throbbing, her garments torn by the briars, and her feet bleeding with the roughness of the path.  The nymph is mortal, for so is her mother; and when she has finished her destined course upon earth, they shall both expire together, and Love be again united to Joy, his immortal and long-betrothed bride.

* * * * *

THE CONTEMPORARY TRAVELLER.

ACCOUNT OF THE VOLCANIC FORMATIONS NEAR THE RHINE.

(From a Correspondent.)

There is a volcanic country on the left bank between Remagen and Andernach, highly interesting to the naturalist, but I believe not visited by the generality of travellers.  The late accounts, however, of the formations of a similar kind in Auvergne and Clermont, in the centre of France, and the speculations to which these phenomena have given rise, determined me to explore this district whilst I was in the neighbourhood.  Bidding adieu, therefore, to the green little island of Nonnenworth, I made the journey to Brohl, a convenient day’s walk of sixteen miles, passing through Oberwinter, Remagen, and Breysig, and the other white and slated villages that enliven the river.  It is here the valley of the Rhine narrows, and the succession of ridges and dales which the road skirts, are sometimes entirely barren, at others thickly covered with vines and fruit-trees.  Though the former plant is pleasing in the tints of its leaf, and in the idea of cultivation and plenty that its thick plantations present, yet there is a stiffness in the regularity in which it grows, propped up by sticks; and it is so short, that one’s fancy as to its luxuriance, (especially if formed from such poetry as Childe Harold,) is certainly disappointed.  I made a digression from the road up the little river Aar, which falls into the Rhine near Sinzig.  A more striking picture you cannot imagine.  The stream is remarkably clear and rapid, the bottom rocky, and its banks, for a considerable distance, are literally perpendicular rocks.  The Aar is a perfect specimen of the mountain torrent; it rises in the Eiffel mountains; and, I am told, in the winter does much mischief by inundations.  It put me in mind of the Welsh rivulets, particularly some parts of the Dee.  This detour having taken up more time than I expected, I reached Brohl, late, but in time for the supper at the rustic Gasthoff, which, with a flask of Rhenish wine, and the company of an agreeable German tourist who was staying there, made ample amends for the fatigues of the day.